Getting excited for NOVA!

So after a crazy 8-9 months of travel, changing jobs, and moving, I am finally ready to get back to geeking out with tabletop and board games!  While I will be playing X-Wing at NOVA (subject for a different post), I have had a blast playing 40K!  I know there is a lot of doom and gloom regarding Games Workshop right now, but I haven't had this much fun with 40K since 5th Edition!

I spent the last two months playing in the Road to NOVA 40K League in Northern VA and Maryland, which was an absolute blast!  I was rocking a full Drop Pod army which seems to suit my play style really well and got to play five great games against five great opponents in the area.  Every game was a nail-biter (minus the one against Werner where he crushed me with his Decurion) and it was amazing to finally have a chance to just play some 40K after such a long hiatus.  I actually went 4-1 and missed out on the final Top 8 by a single battle point, so I was very happy with how it went!

Going to BFS!!

I just signed up for the Battle for Salvation GT over Columbus Day Weekend!  This will be my first time actually playing in a GT, and I am pretty stoked.  The hard part will be settling on a list.  I have my Narrative list which was not terrible, but I have a month to try to put together a Space Marine list.  Hopefully I can find someone local who can loan me 20+ bikes....

BFS Info after the break:

Help me pick my NOVA list!

So I am currently scrambling to finalize my list for the NOVA Narrative Event.  When I registered, I completely missed the part about submitting my list ahead of time.  The draft primer can be found here, but the main highlights are:

2000 points (NOT 1999+1) with full use of Double FOC and Allies
Forgeworld is allowed, but no Superheavies/Gaurgantuan Creatures (could be interesting)
8 Points for completing two Missions each round
8 Points for KPs each round
10 Theme points for modeling/converting to match the narrative
"Infamy" points for completing random objectives (probably my main goal)
Painting Score (not much I can do about that in three weeks with the upcoming move)

Last Hoorah for the Honorguard (for a while)

My FLGS held a 2500 point tournament yesterday with Comp and Painting scores, so I brought out the Honorguard again.  I was actually looking to bring my Vanilla Marines, as 2500 actually makes Calgar reasonably viable.  However, I sold quite a few models a while back, so could no longer field a 2500 point list I liked.  I took the following list:

Draigo (Chapter Champion)
5 Pallies with Brotherhood Banner (TDA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Passback (PA Honorguard)
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Venerable Dread with AC and Pysbolts
Vindicare (Telion)
Dreadknight with Incinerator and Personal Teleporter (CALGAR!)
Pysfleman
Pysfleman

If I'm on Youtube, I'm Famous... Right?

A video someone made showcasing the armies at Sat's Tournament

I was able to take my Honorguard to a tournament in Syracuse yesterday, and they performed pretty well again.  The meta was tougher than normal, with multiple GK, BA, SW, and Necron players.  The tournament required you to take at least one choice from each Force Org chart.  Luckily, I didn't have to change my 2K Honorguard list to meet that criteria.  I would normally do battle reports, but my memory is pretty fuzzy.  I am going to give very short summaries:

More Honorguard Battle Summaries

Chapter Champion and TDA Honorguard

I have been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, so I have been on a bit of a 40K hiatus.  However, the "semi-local friendly gaming store" hosted another 1500 tournament this Saturday.  I am starting to really get into the 1500 scene... it's cheaper and does seem to allow older/themed armies to compete better than at the higher levels.  I decided to bust out my Ultramarine Honorguard (Counts as GK) again and here's how they did:

Tournament Overview
The tournament was a three-round RTT-like tournament with Battle, Painting, and Comp Scores.  There were about 20 people with a solid mix of armies.  I saw IG, Marines, BT, GK, Eldar, Orks, a couple of Necrons, and a couple of DE.  Noticibly absent were SW and BA.... two tournaments in a row without them.  The missions were based on normal missions (KP and Sieze Ground) with slight "Christmas Theme" twists.  The games were broken down into Major/Minor/Tie with 2 bonus points per round.  Unfortunately, not a single one of my opponents had an extra army list, so I am going from memory.  My army consisted of:

Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

It's a really weird/unbalanced army, and I was really worried about the DE lists floating around.  I almost busted out my normal Space Marine army, but ended up just saying "screw it."

Honour Guard at 1500 RTT

So I finally was able to take my Honour Guard (Counts as GK) out for a spin today in a 1500 RTT.  It was super small (10 people), but was still fun as normally I spend my time playing just one other person/army all the time.  It was definately nice to have an opportunity to play other armies.  It was a very suprising meta, as here were at least three Chaos Space Marine players and a Necron player, but SW, BA, and DE were all not represented.  I think some of the normal heavy hitters were at 'Ard Boyz.

My list was:
Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

Recon Tournament Prep

From the PtGRtS Event Calendar

When: July 23 - 11:30am
Where: Main Store - Carousel Center Mall
Prize(s): Store Credit
Entry Fee: $10
Details:
Who says you can't choose what to play before every game?
Players bring up to 4 different 1850 point lists and chose which one to use before each match.
Each list may only be used one time during the event.
Players roll off to determine who chooses their list first.

So I still have to clarify details, but I am assuming the lists have to be from the same codex (if not my Blue Angels are coming out!), and there is no limitation on how similar the lists can be. Basically if you bring 4 of the same list, you are sacrificing flexibility for playing a familiar list each game. That is just my assumption though.
So for now, I am planning on sticking with Vanilla Marines because I don't have enough Assault Marines, Baal's, Furiouso Dreads, or Stormravens to make multiple BA lists. That and I plan on taking this as an opportunity to use Calgar. There are two ways to go about making lists for this event:

1. Gear lists towards countering specific army types (e.g. having an anti-horde, anti-msu, anti-melee, etc)
2. Gear lists towards specific missions (a troop heavy army for Sieze Ground, outflankers for Cap and Control, and KP denial for Annihilation)

At this moment I am leaning towards gearing for missions, as I KNOW I will face one of each of those in the tournament, while I may not face certain armies or hit the same army type all three games. I can build three dedicated lists for the missions and have a list dedicated for a certain matchup I might face (I'm looking at you GKs). Here's my general archtypes:

1. Downsized version of my standard Vanilla Marines
2. A more MSU-style Marines list (both these lists are for the objective-based games)
3. Double LR 10 TH/SS Termies (KP Denial)
4. List 1 with Calgar (for giggles or another KP denial threat)

I'll post specific lists later, but hopefully I can make it work. Most of the armies are pretty similar though, so that will give my opponents a slightly easier time selecting their army lists. I've got plenty of time to think on it though.

RTT Prep Update

After banging my head against Calgar lists for two days, I pretty much determined I cannot field what I would consider a "good" list containing him at 2K.  I came up with two "decent" lists: the one posted earlier on the blog, and another has a LR and turns the MM/HF Dread into a second Rifleman at the expense of a MM AB and the Termies.  While both lists are "workable" and would be more than adequate for non-tournament game, I am very hesitant to go into a tournament situation without a hood.  The new GKs only underscore that concern.  Couple that with the fact that either one would require significant modeling/painting (when I'd rather be working on GKs) and I decided to go with the Battleforce List.

Prepping the SMs for a RTT

2000 Point Battleforce Marines

One of the local stores is hosting a 2K RTT next month and unfortunately my GKs won't ready in time.  I'm currently in the process of figuring out what list I want to run.  The first list is pretty much an extension of the 1750 list I used in the last RTT.  I ended up doing pretty well with it and I think it will scale pretty well.  Because the tournament has soft scores (and I'm model limited) I stuck with my normal "battleforce" approach.  <Broken Link>
Basically it is a Libby, a vanilla LR with Assault Termies, and mech fire support.  The advantage of this list is I would really be suprised if it took a comp hit and I have most of the figures painted to a decent standard for me.  I could take some time to work on touching up some of the models or repainting a squad or two.

The other idea I have been mulling around is the a list using Calgar.  I mean, it IS an Ultrasmurf force.  Why wouldn't I bring out Papa Smurf himself?  I haven't had a chance to use my favorite painted model in a tournament yet, and I thought this might be a good opportunity.  The problem is... How?

After soliciting advice from Dakka, the most meaningful piece of advice (besides "run Vulkan or Lysander) was to avoid LRs and go with foot-slogging Termies.  The idea intrigued me and I came up with what I would consider a very crappy first draft.  It uses a squad of shooty Termies that Calgar will hang with and possibly drop an orbital barrage on Turn 1 and eat a few wounds for them.  It might work... it might not.  <Broken Link>
I am a little hesitant to roll without my Libby crutch and I would have to repaint some shooty Termies, but it would probably be fun to try.  I am not sure whether I should go with more or less Termies, and whether they should all be the same or not.

Oh... and if anyone knows a good way to display AB lists on blogspot, I would offer you a cookie!